Get Creative this Halloween

Halloween is a holiday with endless possibility for creativity. From costumes to decorations and festive snacks and crafts, there are so many opportunities to put your little one’s giant imagination to use! We’ve put together a few ideas to trick, treat, and craft your way into the spirit of the holiday.

For Tricks

Little ones may be jittery with excitement while they wait as patiently as possible for trick or treating. To help them work out those wiggles, try this little trick of your own and get moving with yoga poses and a pumpkin song.  Practice classic poses like chair or cat mixed with seasonal ones like pumpkin for a perfect movement break. Yoga is also a great tool for teaching mindfulness skills that everyone will benefit from.

For Treats

Gather in the kitchen and assemble scary monster mouth treats together for snack time. You will need three ingredients: thick slices of red or green apples, peanut butter (or a similar substitute like sunflower seed butter) and mini marshmallows.

To make:

• Spread the peanut butter on each apple slice
• Stick the marshmallows in the peanut butter in a row like teeth
• Top with another slice, peanut butter side down

Tip: You can also use cream cheese and raisins for the spread and teeth or get creative with what you have in the cupboards! Will add image

Enjoy this monstrously simple and crunchy snack anytime from now to Halloween.

For Activities

Monsters seem to be the theme! Start stashing paper, tissue paper rolls, or similar shapes, now for a silly monster mobile to make on Halloween from one of our favorite resources, Happy Hooligans.

What you’ll need:

• The rolls, be it paper towel rolls cut in half or tissue, as many as you’d like to turn into monsters
• Paint or markers
• Construction paper, tissue paper, craft foam or similar items to cut and glue
• Pipe cleaners
• Yarn
• Googly Eyes
• Anything else you think a monster needs!

What you’ll do:

1. Color the rolls. Have your little one paint the roll any color they’d like. You’ll want to start this a bit early on as the paint will need time to dry before you can move on with the next steps. If you’re in a time crunch, no problem. Kids can color the tubes or even wrap them in construction or tissue paper.
2. When all is dry, you can create the monster’s arms by poking a hole on either side and weaving a pipe cleaner straight through so that each end sticks out. You can also make arms out of construction paper or even 2 cotton swabs.
3. Go wild with googly eyes. Have your little one glue on as many eyes as they’d like, wherever they’d like. There are no rules where silly monsters are concerned.
4. Next, cut pointy teeth, or any other features they’d like the monster to have, out of the foam or paper, and glue to the roll.
5. Patiently wait for everything to dry.
6. Hang the rolls in a mobile by tying a yarn or string around the middle of the pipe clear.
7. You may also, of course, skip the mobile and get right to playing!

Looking for more activity ideas? Create a spider and web using popsicle sticks, cotton balls, and yarn and watch your little ones have a fun time with a typically creepy creature.